30/11/16

I feel the blood thumping up to my fingertips. I feel darkness closing in around me, and in an instant go from the laughing, fun Hannah that everyone loves – that Toni loves – to dark and sad. Empty Hannah. She wants nothing to do with herself but close her eyes and collapse upon herself like a black hole. A black un-whole.  A crushed star.

I feel all of the happiness escape through my fingertips with each thump of blood and wish it would come back. Hold on to the warmth, don’t let it slip… too late. It’s become increasingly hard to deal with it and myself.

            I turn away from everything. Food doesn’t taste good and everything makes me cry. At least the tears can escape—lucky bastards. It actually makes me angry because if I knew anyone else who was like this I would probably pick on them inside my head, mentioning how weak they must be to myself. I am stuck. It used to be monthly. Then weekly appearances weren’t that strange, and now each day is tainted by this fucking depression. The sinking feeling that every single fucking thing I DO IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. That I will never be good enough and that the Hannah that sweeps in and blocks out all the light is sweeping out the Hannah that people like-- that I like. It comes in so quickly and it’s like a weightless weight pressing down on top of me. Pressure doesn’t really describe it, but it comes pretty close.

            It’s a terrifying reality that this bullshit “disease” will leave me lonely with nothing left but it’s own presence one day.

            I wonder about taking medication but that is also like tremendously frightening. I’ve never taken anything but birth control unless it was for recreational purposes. What if I start taking pills and they kill the crazy, spontaneous, electric Hannah that everyone loves? What if all that’s left is a numb blank face with the same features and empty eyes? What if I gain weight? But what if… just what if they make me happy?

            I sit and think so much these days about what it is that’s causing this. It’s not Spain. It’s not Toni, it’s me. Or is it? Could it be the absence of closure from what happened before? I don’t miss New York. I miss moments and memories but I believe they call that nostalgia. I miss my family—normal, like anyone else, but no more than, say, when I lived in New York. I don’t feel excited as much, and I have crushing anxiety. ANXIETY. It’s like those Russian wooden dolls. Every little iota of every thought or action has 100 layers underneath it of shit I feel I need to analyze. This is delicious—how many calories does it have? Should I go run tomorrow? Did I do the laundry? Fuck I forgot to prepare my class. I’ll have a beer to relax, FUCK I have no money. I haven’t paid my credit cards in six months… but should I go running tomorrow? You can see where this is going. I need some help. I need to stop being so hard on myself. I know this better than anyone. But when? How? Why? Maybe we’re all fucked up… am I crazy? Are we all crazy? This is really frightening…

What if I fall apart?

Rainy island blues

There are signs everywhere...

There are signs everywhere; after you’ve lost what you think was your greatest love, that another person is no good for you. In the time I was with Tony NY I pushed and molded everything together, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit. He was so romantic, and was really good and making me feel better when I was down, he was an excellent listener, he was an excellent dancer, all of the kind of things you look for in your greatest- and hopefully last- love. I ignored so many other things that drove me crazy, he wouldn’t come home for days at a time—out on a binge again, I suppose. He also would get extremely aggressive and loud when we fought, and he did very little to move his life forward, a life which, if I had stayed, would have included me. He never cleaned up the house, and did not seem to worry at all if he didn’t go to work most days. After the abrupt departure from the life of Tony and Hannah, I was very weary about jumping into another relationship. No guy would be like him, or he would be too MUCH like him.

            I started to look for guys who gave me attention, because after feeling like your wings have been clipped you need help getting up again. I don’t like being ignored or forgotten so it was easy to weed out the ones whose eyes wandered. The problem is that every thing, every action, performed by every guy, is slowly analyzed and compared to Tony NY. I found Toni Mallorca not long after I had left Tony NY and I was very skeptical. I was lonely. I didn’t want to start something serious with someone else only because I didn’t want to be alone. Toni understood, and had to put me through a few ‘tests’ to see if I was good girlfriend material, as I probably did with him, but my memory is a little bit blurry … When the question of living together came up in conversation it was very soon in our relationship. We had only seriously been together about four months. I had so much to learn about him and didn’t want to be stuck in another Tony NY situation. (I wanted to leave him and couldn’t go anywhere because I didn’t know how to leave him or be without him).

            I told Toni Mallorca, I understood the decision we were making. We both needed to escape the current living situations we were in, and it would be cheaper if we did it together. What happens when you live with another person, in another country, after the chaos of dumping your greatest? You pick everything apart. Slowly, pulling at the threads. There are so many things that Toni Mallorca does great. He is much more responsible than Tony NY. He works every day and always comes home at night, to our house. I get so irritated that he sleeps on the couch, like I clean our bedroom and make the bed for what? So I can sleep alone? He doesn’t do it on purpose but it kills me. I’ve lived through this I don’t like sleeping alone, and if I did I would have looked for an apartment alone. He also tends to close himself up, he feels any emotion besides happy and immediately turns off and implodes. When he is like that it’s like talking to The Great Wall of China, so large and stunning and impossible to get over and see the whole thing. There are also times when Toni does things without immediately thinking of me first, which I must say I can’t complain much about it because in a town where the men don’t include their women to do anything outside of the house and family events, I am always present and at his side.

            Are these things to complain about? I ask myself in my head if this is the material for a great love, if I even am allotted another… or maybe everyone only had one great love, followed by other very very good loves. Maybe the fairytale that everyone looks for isn’t what you’re supposed to end up with, but what you stumble upon in the middle of your story, before meeting your non prince. I was so infatuated with Tony NY and everything was great love material (at least all of the good things that I focused on the ignore the terrible shitty things going on in the background). Maybe Toni Mallorca can’t dance, or doesn’t take me out to dinner every week, but he covers me with the blanket when I am cold. He takes me out to get a beer and play darts when I am stressed and need to get out of the house. He lets me sit on his lap and take annoying pictures of us together and holds my hand when walking around our small Spanish puebla. He doesn’t own a tuxedo and may not know how to order champagne, but that couldn’t save my last relationship so at best it’s just extra cargo. I keep thinking if I will have a greater love than Tony NY, because I built that love up thinking it would be my last. The Italian who I wanted to marry and have children with and dance to romantic songs in the kitchen with and who could whip up a pasta like a pro. Maybe he was my last great, passionate, fiery love, but maybe Toni Mallorca is my next really really good one. He won me over with his blue eyes and I haven’t looked back since. If you think of something of great quality- take truffle, for example- you can’t eat it all the time. You think you want it every day and crave it at all times, but then you eat it, and must go back to your daily routine. Maybe after a great great dish, like a great great love, you still need your bread and water, your daily necessities. Maybe the great loves aren’t realistic. In all the fairytales the prince or princess die anyway. Maybe this really good love that I have right now will be my last. It’s not perfect, but its good.

"The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever." 
-E. Lockhart, "We Were Liars"

Summer days are hot and easy
breezes from the Sahara sweeping in over Mallorca
brushing across my cheek, neck, and body
as you once used to do.

And now I'm caressed by a different breeze
the wind on my face is no longer cold and sharp
it's soft and surrounds me like a warm embrace
and lingers for days, making me enjoy being lazy and melt in your warm presence.